Photo Courtesy: Barni Living stromatalites are very rare. The only known sites are Shark Bay, Australia, the Bahamas, and the Great Salt Lake, Utah. In India , however, there are well-defined and unique fossil stromatalite structures in many locations.
Abstract: Stromatolites record the evolutionary signature of earliest life forms on Earth. The prolific growth of stromatolites found in carbonate rocks were deposited between 3900 and 541 million years ago. The cyanobacteria, responsible for the formation of stromatolites obtained their energy through photosynthesis, thus utilising carbon dioxide from water and rocks—liberating large quantities of oxygen in return. India, fortunately, has extensive stromatolites deposits in the limestone and phosphate facies providing a natural laboratory for the study of the history of earth and it’s evolving environment.
The author is Senior Scientist with Birbal Sahni Institute of Palaeosciences,Lucknow. mukund sharma@bsip.res.in. The article should be cited as Sharma M. 2019, Stromatolites: The Building Blocks of Life, Geography and You, 19(25 & 26): 16-25
As India reimagines its education system in the wake of the National Education Policy (NEP) 2020, digital technologies have emerged as both promise and peril . The policy advocates the use of disrupti...
Heatwaves are no longer climate anomalies; they are the new normal. As India enters an era of prolonged, intense, and unpredictable thermal extremes, its rural backbone is showing signs of distress. I...
India, a nation perched precariously on one of the most active seismic belts in the world, faces a curious paradox: despite mounting geological evidence and rising urban vulnerability, public understa...
Heatwaves have become one of the most lethal and least acknowledged consequences of climate change in India. What was once an occasional extreme is now a defining feature of India’s seasonal climate,...